


Alea iacta est

by Jpnpr



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Any suggestions?, Character Analysis, Gen, bruce loves his children, i dunno what other tags, i guess, this is about how
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jpnpr/pseuds/Jpnpr
Summary: Love may be a single word, but it has many faces. Many, many different faces. Bruce is lucky enough to know most, if not all of them, all thanks to his children(Or, what Bruce would say if he knew how to recognize his feelings and express them in an appropriate manner)(who am I kidding, he probably wouldn't)
Kudos: 12





	Alea iacta est

Love - It's not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Batman, or Bruce Wayne. The first words are tragedy, vengeance, justice. It's darkness, pain, fight. Maybe, if you squinted, it's hope. It's wealth, gullibility, careless laughter or a terrifying growl in the dangerous nights of a dangerous city.

  
  


And it's all true. All these words are part of Bruce “Brucie” “Batman” “B” Wayne.

  
  


But Love - Love is a part, too. And sometimes Love is what Bruce feels with an overwhelming force, a hurricane, taking him over like a supernatural entity with its own mind and heart, filling him like air rushing into a vacuum, leaving him empty like a bird’s nest in winter. Sometimes it's like sitting at a bonfire at the beach, hearing the dance of soft waves on fine grained sand mix with the cracks of drywood. Sometimes it's like being set afire in those bright yellow lights, every single limb torn by the soaring heat, flames engulfing every cell of existence. Sometimes, it's feeding yourself to the flames despite that pain, only to ensure their existence for a little while longer. And sometimes, it's a cold breeze on a hot summer day, the only promise of minimal relief, a little prayer with every breath, an attempt to draw the wind by just thinking about it hard enough.

  
  


Yes, that is Bruce Wayne. Balancing between countless forms and shapes of Love, experiencing all at once and, when it's particularly cold and dark, when he thinks he feels Love by its absence, by the stillness of his heart, he feels it strongest of all. Because Love is not just _nice._ It's also the freezing cold, the feeling when you are in the hell that has frozen over, the one everyone talks about but was never supposed to be real. It's not just healing. Love is the wound and the bullet and the blood loss. It's not just the bandage, it's the scalpel, the tumor, the patient and the doctor.

  
  


Love comes in forms and shapes, in patterns and structures. It comes in shades, in stages, and for Bruce, it came in persons.

* * *

Loving Dick - Loving Dick was - it had been like inviting a guest star on the stage, sharing the spotlight for just a second - and finding yourself in the audience at once. It's like finding the stage of your life stolen by a bright little performer with wide smiles and tooth gaps and tricks up his sleeve, and enjoying every moment of it. It’s like knowing you’re not doing something useful while you’re sitting here, that this show with its single artist will go on without you, but not being able to take your eyes off the podium. Like suddenly you're not the actor anymore, the one _doing_ the act, but passive, reacting. It's reacting, but _oh god,_ what a reacting it is. It's a standing ovation for the simplest somersaults, clapping until both your hands and ears hurt, and your mouth for smiling so wide. It's pride, it's the need to brag, to say, “Did you see that? Isn’t he amazing?” to the passersby, retelling the show over and over again like adults retell the decisive moments of life and children the wonders of every day, because it's both at the same time. It's awe for the same things repeatedly, but also, awe for yourself, for the way your own heart is expanding like a big bang, just growing and growing without exploding, just taking more and more, consuming you in pieces and as a whole.

  
  


Loving Dick is trying to imagine a life without and coming up with empty hands. It doesn't feel like a simple subtraction, because Loving Dick is more than the sums of the parts, Loving Dick is a multiplication, the one where your life is in the brackets and Loving Dick makes a factor out of the whole thing and you end up with more than you could have imagined. You end up with more than you think you can handle, but somehow you do handle it, because it's Dick and it's Loving him and you would do everything for it. And because taking Dick out of the equation doesn't only feel like multiplying by zero and leaving you with nothing, it's like dividing by zero. It doesn't work, it's impossible, and it hurts your head just to think about it.

  
  


And soon, it's also fear. It's the thought, _What if the performer leaves the stage? What if it's empty again?,_ it’s the crushing realization that you will never be able to be the protagonist of your own life anymore, and the dread of what might happen if life takes your little star away. For the first time in a very long time, you're fearing for yourself, not just for other people. Suddenly, fear is not a distant, _Maybe I could protect others from pain_ , it’s, _An accident could take a part from me I cannot survive without,_ it’s the realization that no amount of training, no tool will ever make up for your new weak spot, that you are just as vulnerable as every other parent in this messed up city. It’s thinking, _This goes against everything I have worked for, is it worth it?,_ but it’s also saying, _Yes, yes, it is,_ because it’s like feeling the sun on your skin, it’s like warmth in your bones, and giving that up is not something you could ever do. You can’t live in darkness when you know there are colours, you can’t stay cold when you know the warmth.

  
  


Loving Dick is falling in love with Love, it's the first time a child tastes chocolate, the first time a fledgling is shoved out of the nest and spreads its wings and _flies_. It's the moment you close your eyes and _think,_ you try to come up with a reason why the world is not revolving around this unique taste in your mouth, this overwhelming smell as it makes you sway on your feet and clouds your mind and pushes every other thought out for another day. It's realizing that the world does, in fact, revolve around Love, it's the quiet click as all pieces fall into place, it's breathing out a short _oh._ It's realizing the world turns around Love and you've been running circles in a hamster wheel. It's finally coming to a rest, it's finding your place.

  
  


Loving Dick is not simple, but it's not complicated either. It's fighting because you're scared and you want to give until you're not there, but Loving Dick is also being loved and being hit back by the things you gave.

  
  


Even after Dick leaves, and Bruce stays back like a kid whose blanket has been stolen, Bruce never feels regret. He’s bored, he’s cold, he’s scared. But he hopes Dick isn’t, he hopes Dick is warm and bright and happy, and that makes Bruce feel warmer. He’s still a spectator of someone else’s show, even if the star is looking at others for applause and not performing for him anymore.

  
  


But Loving Dick is realizing that you will always be part of the audience, and that the actor will always be looking at you, too, a little bit.

  
  


It’s also forming bonds and realizing it after, it's learning that Love does not always end too early. It's learning, “See, I came back, and I'm here,” after everything.

  
  


Loving Dick is realizing that even in its absence, the sun makes your night endurable. Its reflection lights up the moon, and even if it's not the sun, it's light, it's a reminder. It's hearing, “I'm just around the corner.” It makes the cold more annoying, sure, because now that you know what warmth is, you miss it, but just thinking about Loving Dick is enough to warm you from the inside.

  
  


Loving Dick is also fuel, it's a needle in the compass, it's a companion in direst need. Loving Dick is learning Love from your teacher in grade school, parroting their words and imitating their movements because you think it’s the only truth. It's the patience, it's hearing, “I'll show you,” “I'll explain,” and “I'll wait for you,” and it's feeling _thank you_ like the first breath after being pulled out of drowning waters. 

  
  


Loving Dick is like landing a jackpot, like winning the only prize that could mean anything to Bruce Wayne, and the constant doubts of deserving it. It's the pain of not being enough, it's the feeling of guilt, of thinking, _He deserves better than me_. It's being selfish despite that, it's thinking, _He deserves better, but I'm glad he's here_. It’s the constant anxiety of messing up, ruining it, thinking, _This is it, this is how he goes._ But that’s okay, because it's Love, and if Love is a die, fear is one side of it.

* * *

Loving Jason is - it's a lesson. It's learning that Love isn't always the same, it's not an imprinted picture, it's not written in stone.

  
  


Loving Jason is realizing that Love is not a glass of water you drink when you're thirsty. It's all the waters on Earth, and on top of that, it's the concept of water. It's the fact that there is a liquid that makes up seventy percent of earth and of the human body and is the base of all life.

  
  


Loving Jason is loving life. It's looking at the usual, the average, the ordinary and turning it into a laugh. It's thinking about your words twice, because they will be used against you, and thrice, because they will have an effect, and you really don't want it to be the wrong one.

  
  


Loving Dick hadn't always been easy, but Jason had taught Bruce the hardship in Love.

  
  


Loving Jason is understanding that hard and soft are different, but not exclusive, it's watching them fill the same body, it's bitter and dark sharing a place with sweet and bright, because sometimes life can't help but dim the light. Loving Jason is loving strength, it's the weed that grows between the concrete, it's the tiny flowers that no one sees, but Loving Jason is seeing them for the miracles they are. And it's thinking, maybe that's the reason why life puts the dark and the bitter there, because else the bright and sweet could take over the world, it's asking whether the weed would have grown as strong if it hadn't fought against the stone, whether breaking the rocks has fortified it, turned it into the invincible, indestructible force it is. Loving Jason is not knowing the answer, but aching with the weight of it and wishing there was a way to help. But the concrete is already there and the leaves have already grown and there's no way to change the past.

  
  


Loving Jason is loving a surprise. Loving for the sake of it, not knowing what's inside, not loving for the monetary value you could count by the dollar bills Bruce has countless of, but loving the feeling of patience and work you put into it. It is like trying to light a fire with nothing but a couple sticks and dry grass, hours of rubbing just to get a single spark. And once it's there, it's enduring the heat of the flames to put just the right amount of material into it, in the thin range of feeding to suffocating.

  
  


Loving Jason is delicate, it's being careful all the time, trying not to surprise the little bird with jerky movements and startling words while making sure to say “I love you” long enough to make sure he heard it.

  
  


Loving Jason is being clumsy, it's falling and scraping your knees and palms. It's the second attempt first, then it's the third attempt, then the forth. It's learning to ride a bike, but never quite learning it. It's when you keep falling, keep hurting yourself, but it's also the feeling when you stand up again. It's the breath you take to steady yourself, the look at your bike, at your torn pants and bleeding hands, at the road in front of you. It's looking back at the bike, thinking, _once more_ . It's saying _once more_ again and again. It's never thinking, _is it enough_?, because what else is there? What else could you do but try again, stand up again, bleed again? There has never been another option and you know it. Because giving up is bad, but giving up Jason doesn't exist. Sure, it hurts. It always has and always will. But Loving Jason is Loving for the sake of it, it's loving to try, it's loving the effort, it's loving the weed and the bird and the street and it's Loving Jason. And it's more than enough.

  
  


Sometimes, Loving Jason is hurting yourself willingly, like reaching into the thornbush again and again and again, leaving your hand bleeding alongside your heart, knowing that each spike is out of fear and bad experiences. It's finally reaching the rose, hearing a surprised, “You're still here?” and thinking, _I would bleed to death for you and not think twice_ . It's thinking, _These tiny cuts are the least I would endure for you_.

  
  


But Loving Jason is not just tiny cuts. Loving Jason is a hole where your heart used to be. It's the crippling pain you feel when your leg is cut off, it's even worse than that, it's crying out and not hearing your own voice, it's falling and falling and crashing at the same time in an endless loop. Loving Jason - Loving Jason is Missing Jason, in a way you've never missed anything else, it's like searching for your soul in the darkness although you know it's not there, because Jason was many things, but not darkness. But Missing Jason is like being trapped in the night, pitch black, not seeing your own hands, let alone a path out. Missing Jason is surviving something Bruce had thought was impossible to survive.

  
  


Then - then Loving Jason becomes pain and fear and anger and longing, and suddenly Bruce doesn't know if the dark was worse before he knew he was just on the other side of light but unwelcome there. Before he knew that relief is _just_ out of reach, but still out of reach. Loving Jason is longing, like the stars that light up your night enough to show the shadows, and sometimes also the path, but they are too far away to warm you up or make it day. But they are there, and Loving Jason becomes longing for the stars in a dark and quiet night, it's waiting and waiting and waiting and seeing a single shooting star after hours of nothing and thinking, _It's worth it, and I love you._

  
  


Loving Jason is having your faults thrown into your face, it's the knowledge that someone is going out of his way to remind you of all the things you did and are doing wrong, but only because your Love is still strong enough to pull him to you. Loving Jason is a display of the results of Love, for good or for worse, with its pain and warmth and burns and scars.

  
  


And that's alright, too, because if Love is a die, consequences are another side of it.

Loving Tim is hard to describe. It's not falling in Love, because you don't just stumble into it with a clumsy step. Loving Tim starts with a slide, with tiny movements you don't realize. It's like conveniently finding your keys where you have not left them, but not questioning it. It's the little gifts life gives you without you asking for it. And sometimes Loving Tim is the lifebelt thrown into your face because you're too weak to reach for it.

* * *

Loving Tim, at least for Bruce, is like stopping shivering in the cold, and thinking, _this is it, this is how I die_ , and closing your eyes one last time, not expecting to open them again. But Loving Tim _is_ opening them again, and it feels like realizing you're in the wrong movie after watching the ads, like walking into the wrong classroom and seeing the wrong teacher, it's the attempt to walk straight back out. But Loving Tim is the little warmth you needed to survive, creeping in too slowly for you to recognize. Loving Tim is what keeps you alive, what makes you stay for the movie instead of leaving, what makes you look at the blackboard and see the question you realize has been bugging you.

  
  


Loving Tim takes no effort, because you don't have to work for it. Loving Tim works for you, it's the colour you have accepted to live without, the warmth you are trying to run from because it hurts too much once it's gone. But that's the thing, that's why Loving Tim is a bait. Because it's like sweet honey, it's innocent and it's for you and you don't see the fear and effort and pain and loss that Love always brings with it. And like a fool you step forward, you can't stay away because it's not just Love, it's _Loving Tim,_ although you know that Love is more than _sweet_ and _nice_ and _warm._ You know it's also _sour_ and _burns_ and _hot_ and _cold_ and _empty_ , and the moment you realize you're Loving Tim is a moment of fear, it's the last deep breath in your lungs before your flight instinct kicks in, it's the one skipped beat before adrenaline takes over. But you're already wrapped in the spider's web. Your limbs are caught, the sticky threads are all around your body, restricting your movements, and you can't get out of it and you tremble as you hear the spider approach - but the spider is Loving Tim, and it's sweet and shy and sheepish and really, really apologetic. It says, “I'm sorry,” and it tries to help you out - and you hear yourself, “It's okay, I'm fine here,” and you realize that you are indeed fine there, and the only thing you think about is the fact that you don't ever want to leave.

  
  


Because Loving Tim is a prison, but its door is open and unlocked, it's been broken before, and it's still a trap, but it's one you stay in voluntarily. And it's a fair trap, because getting the honey was easy. And leaving is your choice. But the hard part of Loving Tim starts after that.

  
  


Because sometimes Loving Tim feels like watching a candle burn, the tiny flame dancing in front of your eyes with shy flickers and small smiles, but you're watching as it burns through the wax and melts away. And Loving Tim is hard, it takes concentration, because the flame is constantly trying to distract you from everything else. Loving Tim is a task to pay attention, but it's punishing itself instead of you. And that's what makes Loving Tim so scary, it's the lure into feeling safe and the crushing guilt that will follow the darkness once the only flame in the room is gone.

  
  


Loving Tim is not the raging heat of Jason or the blinding light of Dick. Loving Tim is unobtrusive, it's the sunlight reflected in the walls when you're not sitting in front of the windows. It's the grass next to the flowers, the light of the hall when you're too lazy to switch on your own lamp, it's the smooth mouse pad under your hand. Loving Tim is like loving your left hand holding your book while your right flips the pages, or holding your mug when your right is stirring the coffee. It's not only your left hand, saying that wouldn't be fair. Sometimes it's your right, when you fling your fist or guide the food to your mouth. But even then, Loving Tim is also loving your left, because it keeps your balance and holds your plate.

  
  


Loving Tim is loving the air, and appreciating it is as impossible as being thankful for every breath, because to say thank you once you have to breathe in and you have to breathe out.

  
  


Loving Tim is like loving the sky, the deep blue that's behind the sun and the clouds and the stars, the one that's never the center of attention. It's loving the ocean, when you try to hold it in your hands and it runs between your fingers and has the colour of your hands or the colour of the sand it falls on. It's looking at the blue in the waves and thinking, _What a beautiful ocean,_ and forgetting that the colour of the ocean is but a reflection of the sky even though you had just thought about appreciating the sky.

  
  


Loving Tim is a trade that looks fair, but feels suspicious. Loving Tim is Loving the things he loves, and thus, Loving Tim is Loving Bruce. And Bruce has never been good at that. But soon he realizes that Tim is just as bad at Loving Tim, and Bruce's heart clenches with the realization. And Loving Tim becomes Loving Tim twice, once for Bruce and once for Tim, pouring Love in at a higher rate than it seeps through the holes, just to make sure it's never empty again. It's teaching Tim to Love Tim, and Bruce risks learning to Love Bruce in turn. Loving Tim is not knowing who learned more, and that’s what makes the trade suspicious, because Bruce is trying to give back twice of what he receives, but he’s still richer than he started.

  
  


But sometimes Loving Tim feels like a grateful day, it's realizing that you are lucky, maybe the luckiest. It's the feeling of _thank you_ that overcomes you while looking at your hands, at the sun in the sky, at the smiles you give and receive. It's appreciating every meal, not because you've been starving, but because you know you could be. You know Loving Tim is the difference between living in a home and living in a cave.

  
  


Loving Tim feels like a stupid mistake, because you know the dangers of Love, and it's not the first time you are in Love, but it's also… You can't blame yourself for it. Because sometimes Loving Tim feels like loving the source of Love, the spring and origin. It's looking at him, inspecting him and thinking, _Where does this come from? How does it fit into this tiny child?,_ it's watching others be as helpless as you have been when Sliding in Love with Tim, and it's forgiving yourself for it.

  
  


That's also what Loving Tim is. Forgiveness. Because only God and Tim know the wrongs Bruce did by him. Loving Tim is being forgiven by him. But Loving Tim is never forgiving yourself. It's looking at the wax dripping along the candle and hating yourself for it. It's shielding the flame from the slightest breeze, from your own breath, trying to convince yourself that you're selfless and you're protecting it, but at the same time you're feeling the warmth in the tips of your frozen fingers. It's letting the flame dance, because it loves to dance and you love to watch it do the thing it loves, and it's praying silently, desperately that you die before seeing the end of it.

  
  


But that's okay, too, because if Love is a die, helplessness is just another side of it.

* * *

Loving Damian is a struggle. Not because it's hard, because he has to force himself, no. Loving Damian is the instinctive struggle of life, it's the urge to breathe, it's the beat of your heart you can't control, it's the intuition of a new born child to cry. It's asking yourself, “Does this make sense? Why am I doing this?”, but trying to let your heart skip a beat won't bring you anywhere. That's what Loving Damian is. It's the skip of a heart beat, it's a trap, it's realizing that now you have another puppet master at the tip of your strings.

  
  


And it's scary at first, because Loving Damian feels like speaking different languages and not knowing which one is right, it's trying to understand a language you don't know, but it's Love, and the second you try it feels like the first steps of a precocial animal, a deer, or a horse maybe, and you can walk just fine after a couple hours of being in this world. And once you do, you don't just walk, you run headlong into it, because that's what Loving Damian feels like. It feels like running at your highest speed without looking where, like you would just break through anything that's in your way and nothing can stop you. It feels the way horses feel about running, birds feel about flying, fish feel about swimming. It feels like breathing. Sometimes it's coughing, because it's unexpected and it hurts and you can't get enough air, and then it's a clean breath again. It’s what you are supposed to do, what you are made for. It’s realizing once again, for the n-th time, that Love is Life and Life is Love, and thinking about it is thinking about the chicken and the egg.

  
  


And soon, Loving Damian becomes wonder. It feels like watching a miracle unfold. It's like a sponge that's hard and crumbly because it's been left out in the sun, but it gets soft with the first drop. And Bruce loves and loves and loves, he loves in storms, not in drops, and it never stops, because Bruce can never stop Loving Damian, and it's never too much. Because Loving Damian is the first rain after a drought, it's watching a withered plant soak up every drop of water, and the green becoming greener, and the leaves becoming stronger, and the stem becoming straight and healthy again. It's feeling, _am I really doing this right? Is it really working?_ It's the initial confusion of success, the first seconds before the realization hits.

  
  


It's the feeling when you find a kitten and it seems dead and cold but it still has a pulse and you tend to it, care for all its needs, feed it with your own hands while thinking of the uncertainty of its survival. It's the first time it opens its eyes, and the first time it purrs, and it's all the times after that, every single time, it's the feeling of _thank you thank you thank you for giving me this experience._ It's also sadness because the kitten still flinches at sudden movements and all the love cannot heal the scars that are already there.

  
  


But Loving Damian is not just loving a kitten. It's loving fire, and fire has to be fed or it will die, it has to be kept or it will kill until there's nothing left to kill, and then it will die. It's dangerous, and by now Bruce has learned to not think about if it is worth it, because Loving them has always been worth it, but Loving Damian still has to be careful. Loving Damian is teaching Love, and that's not all that different from learning Love, but it's being soft when he is hard and being steel when he is sharp and being the void when he screams and being the words when he can't speak.

  
  


Loving Damian is being a bandaid to his cuts, being apology to his missteps, but also being a microphone to his voice, a translator to his words, and also a spectator of his deeds and witness to his miracles. Because that's what Loving Damian is, it's watching Love grow in a ground that has been emaciated and drained of all resources, it's watching Love appear out of nothing. It's watching Love become, and it's wonderful.

  
  


Loving Damian is truly understanding Love, it's seeing what Love can do, it's a peek into the horrors of a loveless world. But it's also the proof that Love is a part of everyone, it's a piece of the jigsaw that has a place in every puzzle, because it _fits_. Because Damian is the shape of Love, the size and texture, the outline and the content, and Loving Damian feels like pushing the shapes into the right holes in a child's toy, like wearing gloves that fit perfectly, like moving in a tailored suit.

  
  


Loving Damian is realizing that one piece has always been missing, although you've been sure that you're complete. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, no, by now this feeling is like a second home for Bruce. But it's thinking, _my life has formed itself for you to fit in_ , thinking this despite seeing the clashes and conflicts and difficulties and challenges,because at the same time, you see holes and rips and the empty seat, and your soul is begging for it. Loving Damian is pointing at an empty seat, saying, “Don't you see? It's been waiting for you.” It's the way your heart flutters with pain, and you think _, what do I have to do for you to see? For you to stop being scared of being left out?_

  
  


And it's frustrating, because there is a throne with his name, with Loving Damian written in marble on it, and it's plain as day, and it's indestructible and immovable, but Bruce has no words to describe and no tools to show, and suddenly he feels like speaking a foreign language again. It's like describing colours to someone who has only lived in a black and white world, like describing a tree only by its shadow. But Loving Damian is learning, and he learns the proofs, and lists them like mathematical statements and love poems at the same time.

  
  


He lists them in endless lists and makes books of it, because that's part of Loving Damian, too. It's saying, _no, this little distraction won't make me forget you_ , and saying _a little mistake will not eliminate your place,_ and maybe most difficult of all, it's pointing at all the other thrones in the throne room and saying _these are just as important as yours, and yours is just as important as theirs._ You have to prove a hundred times, _you are more than a fraction of my heart, you own the whole, and my soul on top of it._ It's proving your Love and looking for the seeds of doubt and eliminating them instantly because you love the way Loving Damian feels when he smiles after that.

  
  


At times, Loving Damian feels like raining on a bottomless pit, like watering empty ground, like running and running without an end in sight, but that's okay, too, because if Love is a die, faith is another side of it.

* * *

And in the end, that's what Love is. It's watching the die fall and accepting your fate.

  
  


It doesn't always fall to the favour of Bruce. Sometimes, it's a mistake or a sacrifice. Often, it's fear, a couple times pain. It's a surprise, really, it's submission. More often than not, it's an improvisation, at times it's asking to roll again because it's on the edge, and _that can't count, right?_

  
  


Sometimes it's losing, sometimes it's the third six in a row, sometimes it's the promise to never roll again.

  
  


And although Bruce is not one to readily accept what life has given him, although he's known as stupidly stubborn and irrationally insistent, and although this obstinacy statistically has worked out rather well for him, he has learned not to defy the die of Love. Love gave him his children, each with their own rolls, their own heals and hurts, and in the end, it may have not always been pleasant, but it's always been perfect.

  
  
  



End file.
